


Boots

by i_am_therefore_i_fight



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Kid!Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_therefore_i_fight/pseuds/i_am_therefore_i_fight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “How about Eleven visits a young Rose Tyler on her birthday? Doctor/Rose, obviously.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boots

It’s masochism and he knows it, but perhaps it’s something he can’t help. Of course the Doctor believes in free will, but he’s too old not to know that some things are inexorable; they can be put off for a while, but eventually they win, like waves wearing down the rocks on a beach.

She’s ten years old, he thinks–and maybe it’s strange that he can pinpoint her age so closely with just a glance, since all those tiny increments of years have long since lost most of their meaning for him. He can’t even remember his own age half the time, and when he can, he wishes he couldn’t. He knows that Sexy keeps track. He thinks that keeping Gallifreyan time makes her… well. Sometimes her motivations are beyond even his comprehension. Nevertheless, she does it, quietly ticking away the moments of his existence by some internal clock, ready to remind him should he ever show sign of losing track.

Rose, though… it’s never been complicated with Rose. He’s always known where they stand in relation to each other, in time and all other things. And today she’s ten.

It’s a good day for a birthday party at the park, clear and sunny and cold, and the children are chasing each other, dodging and weaving around and over the playground equipment. It’s some altered form of tag where the children who are caught shriek and fall down on the ground and then low-crawl back to the starting point, or “base,” hoping to reach it before someone else reaches them. The Doctor watches for a moment before the dark realization hits him that this looks disturbingly like a war game.

He claims an empty swing and watches from a distance, and his hearts start beating faster when he realizes he’s lost sight of Rose. She’s not one of the runners or the crawlers, nor has she joined the group of girls giggling and whispering behind their hands at one of the picnic tables. Has she gone to the water closet? Back to the car, perhaps?

“My mum says you’re too old for the swings.”

He jumps, and she’s right there, looking at him with the kind of grave attention that only a ten-year-old can muster for a complete stranger.

His brow crinkles momentarily, and she points. He follows her finger and sees Jackie on the other side of the playground, staring right at him, arms crossed, scowling. He waves. She doesn’t wave back.

“You’re not one of the dads, are you?”

A familiar pang goes through him at the question, like a finger poking at a bruise he’d forgotten he had. “What?”

“One of the dads? My friends’ dads? Grown-ups all look the same,” Rose says frankly.

He glances back out over the gaggle of kids, several of whom now seem to be caught up in an argument about their scoring system. “Oh, right, yes. No, no. Not me.”

“I don’t have a dad.” The statement is matter-of-fact.

_You will one day, Rose, I promise. You’ll have a dad and a mum and a house and a little dog. And you’ll have him._

_Me._

_No… him._

“I’m sorry.”

She nods like that’s the answer she expected. “You should go. Mum says she’s gonna call the coppers on you if you keeps sittin’ here.”

He looks at her for a long moment, then nods, feeling as though something within him has just withered and crumbled to dust. He doesn’t know what he expected; some spark of recognition, perhaps, or some meaningful dialogue, but of course Rose is only a child. She can’t know what the future holds, and if she could, she would have no reason to recognize him as the man with whom she will travel the universe. He’s changed in more than just appearance.

Slow and creaking like an old, old man, the Doctor gets to his feet. He casts a wistful glance at little Rose, who hasn’t moved, just stands there looking at him with measuring brown eyes. He notices for the first time that she has a book tucked under one arm.

“What have you got there?”

“A book,” she answers, smiling a little bit now.  _Silly grown-ups, always need things explained to them._ Pulling it out from under her arm, she holds it up to his scrutiny. “See?”

_Favorite Fairy-Tales for Children._

His hearts begin to pick up speed.

“That’s lovely,” he says.

“Mum gave it to me.” Rose tucks it up under her armpit again, protectively, and pouts. “The other girls were makin’ fun. They said fairy tales is just for little kids. That’s how come I came over here instead, ‘cause I’m cross wiv 'em.”

“Nonsense. All children should read fairy tales. And grown-ups should read twice as many fairy tales, 'cause they’re dull and they’ve got to read extra to get the point.”

Rose’s face brightens. “Do  _you_ read 'em?” _  
_

“Of course,” he scoffs. “ _I’m_ not dull.”

She beams. “This one’s my favorite, look.” Whipping the book out again and flipping through the pages until she finds the one she wants, she turns the book around and points to the title. “See?”

“Ah, yes. _Puss in Boots_ ,” he reads aloud. “Clever puss. Had an excellent grasp of human nature. And fashion.”

Rose looks him up and down, eyes lingering on the bow-tie particularly. “Yeah… maybe you ought to read it again.”

Huffing, the Doctor reaches up to straighten his bow-tie lovingly. “I have a  _great_ sense of fashion.  _And_ I’m very clever.” He preens. “Actually, the puss and I have quite a bit in common.”

Rose sighs. “That’s not the  _point._ ”

“What’s not the point?” he asks, a little sharply, still stroking his bow-tie as if to comfort it.

“Puss doesn’t win 'cause he’s clever,” Rose explains patiently, with a weary expression. _Grown-ups always need things explained to them._ “He wins 'cause he don’t just sit 'round, waitin’ for something to happen. He goes out and makes it happen.”

_Oh, my Rose. You haven’t changed._

The bitter, tender hurt that rises in him like a flood makes him cast about for a change of subject. He stabs his finger at the book again. “What about that next one?”

Rose wrinkles her nose. “ _Li'l Red Cap?_  Isn’t that the one about the little girl who runs off wiv a stranger and he ends up eating her'n her mum?”

The Doctor feels his hearts drop into his stomach. “That’s… not quite how the story goes.”

“I’d never let someone do that to me'n my mum,” Rose adds, ignoring him. “I’d get 'im first.”

His eyebrows go up. “Oh yes? You’d eat the wolf, would you?”

“I'd  _be_  the wolf.” Rose ponders her own proclamation for a moment. “Only, I’d be nice. Instead of trying to make people get lost, I’d help lost people find their way.”

“Do you know, I believe you would,” he replies softly.

“ _Rose Marion Tyler!_ ”

“My mum’s calling,” Rose remarks unnecessarily.

The Doctor looks up to see Jackie storming across the playground toward them, shouting at the children who dart around her legs to watch where they’re going. “Oooh… I should probably, um…” His hands do a complicated, indecisive little dance.

Rose nods, cradling the book against her chest. “See you 'round, then.”

 _I don’t want to go._ “Yeah… see you.” _  
_

Rose turns and starts to walk back toward her mother, and the Doctor is seized with panic, desperate to call her back, desperate not to watch her disappear again.

“Rose!”

She turns back, a question in her brown eyes.

“Don’t forget,” he says, and his voice doesn’t crack, even though it feels like everything in him is breaking into pieces.

“Which bit?”

_Any of it. All of it. Don’t forget the wolf and the little girl. Don’t forget to help me find my way._

“It wasn’t about the cleverness,” he says. “Or the boots.”

She smiles; for a moment, it’s like all the distance between them disappears, and they are once again the Doctor and Rose Tyler.

“Yeah, alright,” she says. “I’ll remember.”


End file.
